13 minute read
TJH Speaks with Ines Chattas, Culinary Director at UN Plaza Grill
Modernizing a Menu
TJH Speaks with Ines Chattas, Culinary Director of UN Plaza Grill
BY SUSAN SCHWAMM
Ines, congratulations on your new position at UN Plaza Grill in New York City. Tell us a bit about your background.
I was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I lived there until I was 19. I moved to the United States after spending a couple of months in France doing internships, where I studied hospitality. I didn’t really have a plan when I came to the United States, but I ended up staying and I worked in Miami.
Landing in the “kitchen” was a very happy accident. My background was in hospitality, with some culinary instruction. As soon as I started my career within the hotels, I started working in the restaurants inside of the hotels.
My first job in a restaurant was as a hostess and supervisor. And then I was an assistant manager. I left the hotel world when I realized I was not cut out for that. I didn’t want to live the corporate life. I started working for an independent restaurant owner in a fairly well-known restaurant here in Miami; I worked there for 10 years. I have the blessing of having an amazing relationship with the owner. We became really, really good friends, and he entrusted me with his business and let me grow his business with his guidance and his mentorship. Essentially, I was able to learn about running an independent restaurant on somebody else’s payroll. I was very involved with menu creation. During crazy busy times, I would occasionally help with preparation in the kitchen if it was needed.
When I left that restaurant back in 2010, I partnered up with a woman who had been my first boss at the Grand Hotel. We opened up a restaurant in Bay Harbour Islands; it’s been open for ten years. She had 30 years of kitchen experience and she didn’t want to be a slave of the stove, so when we opened, she said, “Kiddo, you’re going to come in the kitchen and you’re going to learn. And we’re going to cover for each other, basically.” She’s a very fun, crazy, unusual Italian lady from Pisa, but she’s American. She’s been living here since ‘77, so she has good balance, and her food is amazing.
At our restaurant, we wanted to do everything a little different than what other people were offering. For example, we offered a chicken sandwich with apple chutney and crunchy endives – a take on traditional Thanksgiving dishes. We became a favorite in the neighborhood, and we have some people who eat lunch with us literally five days a week.
Soon, my partner moved to North Carolina, and I stayed with the business. I knew I had to step away from the kitchen and I hired some wonderful people to work in the kitchen.
Did you miss not being in the kitchen?
Yes and no. For me, it’s super-therapeutic when I’m having one of those days when I’m like, “Ra, ra, ra, ra, ra,” and I can go in the kitchen and start cooking and get in the zone and forget about everything else. Working in the kitchen, you need to be 100% focused on what you’re doing. Your brain cannot be wandering to other thoughts.
On the other hand, I don’t miss being every day in the kitchen – the heat, the pressure, the intensity on the body, especially being a woman. The more I work in the kitchen, the more rough around the edges I get, so it’s not easy.
What were your days like?
They were long days, and our lunches were intense. At that time, we were a one-person kitchen. One person doing everything in the kitchen, so it was intense.
Nowadays, the only days when I’m hands-on in the kitchen is for Thursday dinners. I curate a different menu every week, so my dinner menus change weekly.
I love all types of cuisine. I like to experiment with classics and offer old-fashioned dishes from a new perspective.
Aside from the restaurant, I also operate two larger dining rooms and two private condominiums in Bal Harbour.
Now, with my new appointment at the UN Plaza Grill, it’s just a new adventure in a different city with a different kind of customer with a different kind of product. It’s a learning experience, and it’s super-exciting. It really is a challenge.
You mentioned that it’s a different city. Are there different foods that your customers will be expecting in New York than in Florida?
Yes, but let’s face it. Product availability has become so global. Of course, you always want to keep a seasonality. This time of the year, you’re serving more winter foods, more squashes, and in the summer, you go brighter. But the reality is that nowadays, you can get anything any time of the year.
In terms of what people want, it’s not the same as in Miami, but at the UN Plaza Grill we want to bring in the feeling of the United Nations in our menu. We want to keep the soul of the more classic steakhouse, but also offer something a little different. We’re going to offer a menu where you can find some Asian dishes, you can find some Middle Eastern dishes, you can find some good Argentinean style of steak. I think people enjoy that – to find many cuisines within one menu. I think that’s a value.
from the other restaurants that you ran, correct?
It did require a little studying and going back and forth with the mashgiach. “Can we use this ingredient? Can we not?” I’m not talking about the obvious. Of course, no dairy at a meat restaurant, and all that. But I learned that raspberries are not kosher, for example, and you want to stay away from certain vegetables that have too many holes in little places where a tiny little bug could be hiding and you don’t even know. Also, the process of the meat means that kosher meats are salty to begin with.
We have a great staff at UN Plaza Grill. They really know their customers. And they, along with the rabbi, are here to guide me whenever there are doubts.
In many dishes I’m used to using heavy cream. So, instead, we need to find alternatives. I need to work with margarine and soy milks and coconut creams…it’s all about experimenting and it’s been super-interesting to see what works. I’m really enjoying it.
What can people expect on the menu?
I try to put some of my go-to dishes, my staples, on the menu – like these wonderful short ribs. But I also understood that people in New York City are seeing a big trend in Middle Eastern flavors, so we added that flair to the menu as well. I included a lot of Middle Eastern spices that I really like, like za’atar and baharat. I grew up with these spices. My stepfather is from Syrian descent, and I grew up eating the spiced kofta meatballs that I put on the menu. I grew up eating those inside of a pita with his hummus, for example. He used to make his hummus without tahini, so I’m used to making my hummus without tahini – straight chickpeas, garlic, olive oil, and lots of lemon. At the UN Plaza Grill, we add tahini to our hummus because people are more used to eating it that way.
With our short ribs, we slowly braise them with red wine, balsamic vinegar, and some prunes. Sometimes I put in some dried apricots. So when you make the sauce, your sauce is kind of sweet and tart and rich. With the crispy dog that we put on the menu, I also included some apricots in the sauce just because I love mixing those flavors. On the Alaskan salmon that we have on the menu, I went with an Asian twist on what’s one of the classics in my places here in Miami, with an Asian glaze and some beautiful stir-fried veggies. It’s like you’re traveling around the globe in the menu.
We have an offering of sushi, but I tweaked it a little bit. We included more of a tropical Miamian roll, something that I love eating here. And who doesn’t like a little mango in their sushi? We wanted to make the menu more modern and more global.
We have a beautiful selection of appetizers here. There’s so many items that were on the original menu that kind of have become classics, so
we kept a lot of those items and just did a twist on them. For example, for the lamb samosas, we’re serving them with a mango salsa. The sweetness of the mango with the gaminess of the lamb and the hint of curry works, and it makes it a little more international. The beef pot-stickers that we serve are addictive. Consider yourself warned. The tuna pizza that was on the menu – I was told that it’s one of the favorites, so we just did a little tweak on it and it went back on stage.
What’s the secret behind remaking a menu?
existing clientele that will come looking for certain items that they love about the place. They still need to recognize the good old place they love, but they need to be able to notice the difference as well. With some items from the grill, we added a twist. On the old steakhouse classic, for example, the center cut ribeye, we are now serving it with a rosemary aioli flavor. We make an aioli with garlic and rosemary, and we serve that separate but when the dish comes to the table, it comes with a sprig of rosemary, which you burn at the table. Once it stops burning, you use it to spear your aioli, and you can paint your steak with this beautiful sauce that’s smoky and herby and garlicky.
What’s your secret for good chicken matzah ball soup?
To me, the secret is tons and tons of dill. It gives kind of a creaminess to the flavor.
When we cook our soup, we remove the skin from the chicken, so the soup is not greasy. We boil it with carrots, onions, celery, and a lot of dill. After a couple of hours of cooking, we remove the chicken. We get all the meat off of the bones and strain all the big chunks of vegetables that we use for cooking. The vegetables get discarded at that point. Then we do a tiny, tiny dice – but tiny, I tell you. Overly tiny, okay? – carrots, yellow squash, and zucchini, and we drop that back into the soup. We add more dill and the chicken that’s pulled apart, and it’s beautiful. Right before it goes out, we add just a little dash more of fresh dill. I also love to put a lot of black pepper on top of my matzah ball. That hint of spiciness and the black pepper with the matzah ball and chicken and dill – don’t get me started.
You’re not going to hear me talking about weird and exotic ingredients unless I’m purposely making something that requires those ingredients. I believe in the honesty of the flavor. If you’re having a chicken matzah ball soup, you want to taste those ingredients. You don’t want to hide them.
Do you have any tips that you can give a home chef to manage cooking for a large crowd?
Prep ahead. That’s something I always tell my friends. For example, you don’t need to chop garlic every time you cook a dish. One day you de-
cide you’re going to use something that requires chopped garlic. Go ahead and grab the whole head, peel it all, put it in the food processor, and keep your chopped garlic covered with olive oil in the fridge. The same thing with your fresh herbs. You can get a big bunch of parsley, just wash it, chop it all, dry it nicely so it doesn’t get moldy or it doesn’t start smelling funky after a few days, and boom, there you have it.
When you’re making a soup, don’t be afraid to make a little extra and put a little bit aside in the freezer. The next time, it can be a base for a sauce.
There are some things that won’t keep well in the fridge. For the other things, prep ahead. Onions, shallots – prep them ahead and you can use them tomorrow as a base for a vinaigrette.
Try to think ahead. If you’re having a group of people tomorrow night, go through your prep list. Chop your onions, chop your veggies, and then when you have to cook, it’ll all be there for you. Divide and conquer.
I always prep dressings in advance. They have a very long shelf life – maybe even a military shelf life. You can make large quantities of dressings and keep them in the fridge. I’m a big believer in homemade dressings. The only dressing I don’t make is a ranch dressing. With Israeli salad, I generally dress that salad ahead of time. I put in a lot of lemon. With cucumbers, they need time for the flavors to sink in.
But with salads, you can get all your ingredients chopped and ready to go, and then you can
assemble it right before serving and dress it right before serving.
It sounds like your life is very busy right now, especially between your Miami and New York restaurants. What do you do to relax?
Right now, the next two months are a lot of work and very little fun, but when I really want to take my head out of everything, it’s a good series on Netflix. After the whole day of being with people and dealing with customers, I barely want to speak.
I also try to go to the beach after work. Now, the days are shorter, but if I finish work around 3 o’clock, I get to squeeze two hours of beach, my workouts, and then just having a quiet, relaxing time at home with my husband and my son. That usually does the trick. And then, of course, whenever I’m not working, I want to eat out. I want to try different places. Anywhere where I can sit and somebody cooks for me, I’m grateful and happy.
Whenever I have the chance, I try to squeeze in traveling – that’s really my unplug moment. My husband is a TV producer, so he travels a lot. So even for a few days, I’ll hop on a plane and meet him wherever he is. That’s really my time off.
What do you usually order at a restaurant?
I eat a lot of Asian food. I like to eat a lot of sushi and Asian style of tapas. What else do I love? I’m from Argentina. I love a good steak. So I go to one of my favorite Argentinian places in town. And what else I really like? I like Middle Eastern cuisine, too. I love to try different flavors.
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